Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral?
by B.L.A. the Mouse
Summary: Harper learns something new about Trance.


Summary: Harper learns something new about Trance.

Codes: None. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Nadda.

Disclaimer: Tribune owns all rights to _Andromeda_. All I did was borrow it for use in my twisted little tale.

Rating: G

Spoilers: None.

Setting: Somewhere in the first season, where Trance is still purple.

Feedback: Please! I love praise and constructive criticism, but flames will be sent to Hades via express mail.

Archive: Ask first and I'll probably say yes.

Authors Note: This was inspired by ElenaVK's challenge on the Wandering Minds message board- check Lucy's bio for the address.

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Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral?

By B.L.A. the Mouse

"Hello, my purple princess," Harper greeted as he bounded through the doors of Med deck. "And what was the problem you called me down here for?"

Trance smiled and pointed at a piece of equipment. "The scanner thing isn't reading Annie right. I put her under it and it couldn't tell me anything."

"Trance," Harper said carefully, "Annie's a rosebush. The little men who read the scans aren't trained in plant."

The alien pouted, twining her tail around the small pot on the table and pulling it closer. "Please?" She glanced up at him through her eyelashes. "I know you can at least adjust it, can't you?"

"Well, I didn't say I couldn't. Let's see if I can work some of the Harper magic." He cracked his knuckles, ignoring her wince, before kneeling down and prying the panel off the machine. He felt her brush past him and squat at his side, her distinct fresh scent of dirt and exotic fruits and flowers tickling his nose. "So how is it not scanning Annie?"

"It keeps blurring details like her cells and organelles. I can't get a good look at her nucleus."

"I suppose it would be pointless asking why you want a look at her nuclear-thingie." He tweaked a couple of controls. "Try it now."

"Nucleus." She sprang to her feet and put the plant on the medical pallet. "Yay! I got it!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands together.

He stood and leaned on the edge of the bed, recoiling as she lightly slapped his forearm with her tail. "So will you tell me?"

"Because I want to get a DNA record."

"Why?"

"Because I want to have one of a Terran rosebush."

"You're not going to tell me anymore, are you?"

"No."

"All right." Adjusted by now to those little roadblocks that came up when dealing with Trance, he dropped the issue and watched as she stored the file. "Is that it? If it is, I have to change the settings back, 'cause no matter how much fun it might be to see it say that Tyr is a pear tree, I would not want to get the lovely Rom-doll mad at me." When she nodded, he hunkered down in front of the panel, still smiling at the image of Tyr as a fruit tree.

Harper didn't know why- it was downright sloppy of him- but he glanced up right as he made the necessary adjustment. Trance's hand was reaching under the scanner, retrieving Annie, and showing up on the screen as she did so. Normally that wouldn't have been a problem, as no scan showed anything about her anatomy, but this time he saw a fuzzy outline of what looked like a skeleton. Then he changed the setting over and the image reverted to the normal outline of her hand.

Moving very awkwardly, Harper hurriedly replaced the cover. "Gotta go. See ya in the funny papers." He bolted out the door, ignoring her puzzled gaze.

* * *

Later, in the Machine shop, Harper worked fitfully on a new droid design. He would add a component, then stop to puzzle something out. Or, more accurately, argue with himself about a puzzling someone.

"I mean, come on," he muttered, "she always scans funny. Maybe this is a part of that. Or maybe the equipment malfunctioned."

He thought about it, then refuted himself. "Nah, that never malfunctions, not when it's maintained by _moi_." He paused, then came to what was bugging him. "How come she only shows up when I set it for plant?"

Harper did not like the answer.

* * *

A few days later, Harper was sprawled beneath a console and fixing some of the latest battle damage when he heard a swish of movement and caught a whiff of Trance's scent. He glanced up to see the sparkly-purple-skinned legs and tail. He couldn't see further than the orange hotpants, but then, he didn't have to. "Hey, Trance. Come to see the genius at work?"

"Yeah." She sat on the edge of the console and watched him for a minute before asking, "Can I help?"

His eyes widened and his grip tightened on the soldering wand. Trance, machinery, and those three little words were never a good combination. Hey, it sounded funny, but being dead in space as a result of that removed all humor and made one very cautious. Not to mention crashing an entire drift's computer, sending them three hundred years back in time... "No! I mean, uh, no, thanks, but could you do me a favor and hand me that screwdriver?"

_And not touch anything_, he added mentally as she stood up again.

When Trance handed it to him, he grabbed for it immediately, only to hear her yelp. He dropped the screwdriver and shoved himself out from under the console and up. She was staring intently at the palm of her hand, as if willing something to happen. For all he knew, she was. "Trance? Are you okay? What happened? Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," she said distantly, still focused. "I just got a little cut."

Curious, he glanced down at her hand and nearly swooned. It wasn't that he hadn't seen blood before- he grew up on Earth, after all- he just hadn't seen it in that shade before. Or shades, really. It shimmered in every color of the rainbow and the ones in between, from lime green to deep maroon. And it was _thick_, like syrup, slowly oozing up from the long gash through the violet skin. After a second of the two of them staring at it, nothing happened that he could discern, but she lowered it back to her side. "There. It should be all better now."

"Uh... What was that?" Harper couldn't keep quiet anymore. "What was that goo? How will that be better?"

"It was like your blood, except it isn't," she said matter-of-factly. "It's more like tree sap, but it will protect the wound until I can grow new skin."

"So it's like a plant scab?" Combined with the scan of a few days before, it was too much.

Harper passed out. Literally. Luckily, though he didn't realize it, he barely avoided cracking his head against the console.

Trance stared down at his prone form before remarking simply, "Oops."

* * *

When he came to, he opened his eyes and stared straight into Trance's. "Hi," she said brightly. "You fainted."

"Yeah, I remember that bit." Harper sat up and discovered that he was on a bed in Med deck. "How'd I get down here?"

"I got a couple of Andromeda's bots to do it." She boosted herself up onto the bed beside him. "Why'd you pass out?"

He decided carefully how to phrase it. "I got a very strange thought. Not that that's unusual, but the kind of thought it was was weird."

Trance looked down at her feet. "You think I'm a plant, dont you?"

"Well yeah. Are you?"

She looked him in the eye again. "Sort of. I'm a little like you and a little like Annie."

"Okay, you're a plant. So where does the tail come from?"

"You don't mind?" She smiled.

"Nah." Harper shook his head for emphasis. "Who else can say that they've got a friend who's animal, vegetable, and probably mineral, too?"

****

The End


End file.
